Late Night Pick-up
by surena-13
Summary: A drunk Brenda has called Sharon to come and pick her up after they haven't talked in months. Brenda/Sharon


"You're pretty," Brenda slurred before she stumbled and bumped into Sharon, who had to prevent the blonde from falling flat on her face by grabbing her hips. She rolled her eyes. She wasn't even sure why she was doing this for the chief - former chief. Brenda Leigh Johnson hadn't been deputy chief in months. Sometimes that little tidbit managed to slip Sharon's mind, just like she sometimes still had problems seeing herself as the head of Major Crimes. Maybe once Provenza got over his childish spite, it would be better.

"Gee, thanks," she muttered under her breath, supporting the woman by wrapping an arm around her waist and guiding over the pavement, ensuring that Brenda's kitten heels wouldn't get caught in any holes which would undoubtedly resolve in a disastrous fall which would not only lead to bruises but also the ruin of some very expensive Blahniks and Armani trousers that had cost her more than Sharon would ever admit.

"Pretty, isn't the right word, though, is it? It's beautiful. That suits you better. You're beautiful, Sharon Raydor." Sharon took a deep breath, briefly closing her eyes, and steadied the swaying blonde, carefully tightening her grip. She didn't want to think about the last time she had heard those words from Brenda when they had both been naked, sweaty and satisfied. It felt like a lifetime ago, back when she had been a different person.

"And you're drunk," she replied, perhaps a little too harsh. This was not how she had envisioned her evening would go when she had come home that night. Rusty was in bed, homework done and she had planned to curl up in bed with a book that she had wanted to finish months ago when Brenda had called her out of nowhere, utterly drunk and in need of a ride and instead of calling a cab, she had called the woman she had had an affair with.

She hadn't spoken to the woman since she'd left for Atlanta. Brenda had just disappeared without even saying a proper goodbye to her. Sharon knew that what they had had was just an affair, just sex, nothing more, but in the months leading up to Brenda's resignation, Sharon had thought that they had become friends, and as a friend she had hoped for a goodbye. Even if it had been just a simple text and not that letter that Brenda had written to her squad that Pope had given her.

"So? Don't they say that drunk people always tell the truth?" Sharon snorted. Being married to an alcoholic for ten years had taught her the hard way that drunk people rarely spoke the truth even if they were terrible liars and she fully expected Brenda, a CIA trained interrogator, to be able to lie even while intoxicated. Brenda had always been an excellent liar. She'd fooled her husband for months.

"Then_ they_ would be wrong. You probably won't even remember this conversation in the morning. So let's just get you home." Never taking her hand of Brenda's waist, Sharon dug around in her purse for the keys to her car and unlocked it. She didn't particularly want to have a conversation with her ex-lover, mistress or whatever the hell it was they had been, about her looks, not in the middle of the night, not while Brenda was drunk and certainly not in public.

"You really can't take a compliment, can you?" Brenda rhetorically asked, a pout forming on her lips as she frowned. Sharon sighed and opened the door for the blonde. She really didn't want to do this, not now. It was late, or early depending on the point of view, the pounding in her head was increasing and Brenda currently leaning on her, making poor attempts to feel Sharon up.

"Not tonight. Brenda Leigh, get in the car," she ordered, but Brenda was in a petulant mood, or maybe she was always like this when she was drunk, Sharon honestly had no idea, and instead Brenda pushed herself against Sharon, her hand rather uncoordinatedly drifting towards Sharon's ass. Sharon sighed and rolled her eyes. Great, a horny drunk, just what she needed.

"I always liked it when you called me Brenda Leigh. Still do," she purred. Sharon caught Brenda's wrist before her hand wandered too far down and removed it from her body. Brenda let it limply fall by her side. For a moment Brenda looked like she was going to make a comment she most definitely was going to regret, before she simply looked defeated. Sharon almost felt sorry for. Almost.

"Great, now get in the car," Sharon snapped. She was tired, she still didn't like the idea of leaving Rusty alone for too long, afraid that he would run off, and she did not want to have to deal with a horny Brenda, especially not since she had no idea where she stood with Brenda. She didn't know what had happened to blonde after she had left, she didn't know what Brenda felt. She tried to gently force Brenda into the car, but suddenly Brenda seemed a lot more surefooted.

"I left Fritz." Sharon froze, one hand on Brenda's hip and the other on the car door. She had heard Brenda's words, but they didn't quite register just yet. Brenda had left Fritz. The woman who had stated, while undressing Sharon, while agreeing to the limitations of their relationship, that she would never leave her husband, had left agent Howard; something that Fritz had neglected to mention while they had worked together on a few cases.

Sharon looked at her, unable to process Brenda's words. If Brenda had said those exact same words six months ago, Sharon probably would have kissed her and held her and wondered if possibly there was a future for them, but now, everything was different. Now it just gave her an awful, empty feeling. Brenda worried her bottom lip between her teeth and looked at Sharon, the expression in her brown eyes unreadable.

"Why?" she asked, hating that her voice cracked against her will. "Why did you leave him?"

"I didn't love him anymore," Brenda replied with a shrug. She was trying to brush this off, like she always tried to brush off the fact that she had broken the rules, as if divorce meant nothing. Sharon shook her head and closed the door before she leaned against the car, rubbing a hand over her forehead. Brenda had always had a complete disregard for other people's emotions, but this was extreme even for her.

"And why after months of not seeing me or even talking to me do you decided that this is the thing you want to tell me?" Sharon asked slowly. This wasn't a conversation she wanted to have with an intoxicated Brenda in the middle of the night on the street, but now that the words were out in the open, she had to know the truth. She had to know that this wasn't some misguided attempt to get restart whatever kind of relationship they had had.

"I felt like you deserved to know," the blonde mumbled and looked away from Sharon's eyes. Even in her inebriated state, Brenda knew that this conversation wasn't going as she had wanted it to go. Sharon pinched the bridge her nose, willing away her oncoming migraine and failing miserably. This wasn't happening. She didn't need this in her life, not when everything around her had finally calmed down. The squad had finally gotten used to her, Rusty was listening to her and it just felt good. She didn't want Brenda crashing into her life again.

"I don't know what you want me to do, Brenda. I don't know how you want me to react to this information."

"You could be happy or angry or, I don't know. Just show me any kind of emotion." Brenda shrugged again. She seemed just as helpless, as clueless as Sharon. She didn't know how to deal with this situation any better than Sharon did. Sharon had no idea what Brenda had expected would happen. Sharon was never the type of woman for big emotional gestures, but after months of absolutely no contact at all, she was equally confused as to what Brenda wanted from her.

"Your marriage has nothing to do with me. If you're with agent Howard or not with him, it makes no difference to me," she replied coolly. It didn't make a difference anymore. If they had still been having an affair, it might have changed some things, but now, they weren't anything to each to other anymore, except in the past tense, former colleagues, former friends, former lovers.

"But - -," Brenda tried, but Sharon interrupted her.

"There is no 'but'. You left, Brenda, without a word, as if what we had meant nothing to you. And even if the sex was meaningless, we were friends and you left. And I moved on. Everybody moved on. Major Crimes, Pope, Rusty, me, we moved on. We didn't wait for you to come back to go on with our lives. The world doesn't stop simply because Brenda Leigh Johnson wants it to stop," Sharon said, exasperated.

"What are you saying?" The blonde sounded weak, vulnerable. And she looked so small, standing there, her make up less than perfect, her clothes wrinkled, smelling like a bar. She looked helpless and Sharon hated herself for wanting to reach out and hug her, for wanting to get rid of that sad look in her eyes. She shouldn't let that woman get to her like that anymore. She had convinced herself she was past that.

"I'm saying that we filled the hole that you left. I filled it and I'm not ready for you to barge back into my life and turn it upside down, again. So please, Brenda Leigh, get in the car and I'll drive you home. But that's all." Sharon stepped aside to give Brenda access to the door. Brenda opened her mouth to protest, but then closed it again and opened the car door and let herself less than gracefully fall into the seat.

Sharon took a shuddering breath and steadied herself against the car. It would just be a ride to wherever Brenda lived now and then she could go home and try to deal with this, one way or another. She walked around to the other side of the car and sat down behind the wheel. Brenda sat very demurely in the seat beside her like a scolded child, her blond curls obscuring her face from Sharon's eyes.

"Where do you live?" she asked as she started the car. Brenda quietly supplied her with the address. As she pulled out of the parking space, Sharon turned on the radio, not wanting to sit through fifteen minutes of unbearable silence with Brenda, knowing that the other woman was wallowing in self-pity, something that Sharon had absolutely no intention of fueling.

"I'm sorry," Brenda whispered, looking down at her hands that rested in her lap. Sharon tightened her grasp on the steering wheel and willed herself not to look at Brenda.

"Please, don't." She almost sounded like she was begging, but Sharon couldn't bring herself to care. She didn't want to deal with a remorse or regrets. She just wanted to go back to her life, the way it had been before Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson had thrown it upside down. It was impossible to go back there, but the last few weeks, even with Rusty and Chief Taylor, had seemed awfully normal for the first time since the blonde had waltzed into her life.

Thankfully Brenda shut up and stayed silent for the rest of the ride. Whether she was contemplating her life, listening to the music or just staring out into space, Sharon had no idea, but Sharon was grateful for the fact that Brenda didn't apologize anymore or continued talking about leaving her husband. Sharon was doing her best not to think about Brenda's divorce or what Brenda thought could possibly be happen between the two of them now that she was no longer a married woman.

"We're here," Sharon said softly when she pulled up in front of an apartment building. The drive had calmed her somewhat. The fact that Brenda hadn't said a word had helped. She had been able to organize her thoughts, her feelings even if her headache had only intensified.

"I know," Brenda replied weakly, her fingers playing with the hem of her skirt. She still wore those hideous florals. Sharon fought a smile. In some ways the blonde would never change and it was almost a comforting thought if it weren't for the fact that little reminders like that hurt Sharon more than she would care to admit.

"Brenda, I'm not going to go inside with you. You have to understand that when you leave for months the way you did that after a while people won't be waiting for you to come back anymore."

"People? Meaning you," Brenda snapped. Sharon raised an eyebrow at her, but decided to write Brenda's tone off as an effect of the no doubt enormous amount of Merlot she had consumed. The car ride had sobered her up a little, but not completely. Sharon could still hear the slight slur in Brenda's words, the less than coordinated movements

"Among others. I'm not ready for you to come back into my life as if nothing happened. I'm not sure if I could handle it again," she admitted, her voice wavering slightly, betraying the underlying emotions. She prayed she could get out of this with her dignity intact. From the way Brenda's eyes suddenly found hers, she knew that the blonde had understood how much that little confession meant to her. It was the only admittance Sharon would ever make about the feelings she had had for the self-absorbed, infuriating, stubborn, breathtakingly beautiful Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson.

Sharon looked at Brenda, really looked at her for the first time that evening. She had changed. Willie Ray's death had taken its toll on her, as had the end of the whole Stroh ordeal and then her divorce. It showed that Brenda had been through a lot and she was still dealing with everything that happened and she needed to do that by herself and on her own terms, not by seeking out Sharon and hoping that it would all go away.

"So, that's it," Brenda said defeated, looking away from Sharon when she noticed that Sharon was not going to accompany to her door or come in for coffee in the hopes of seeing where it would go. Sharon was saying goodbye and she had to understand that. That part of their lives was over. It wasn't coming back, they weren't going to relive those days. That complicated mess of an affair in between the animosity, the murders and investigations, it was gone.

"Yes. That's it. For now," Sharon added carefully, sincerely hoping that she wasn't going to regret saying those last two words. Despite her resolutions to put an end to whatever lingered between them, she had left door ajar for something new to be developed, something with better foundations, something that could last. Something that Sharon wasn't sure she wanted or would ever truly be ready for.

But Brenda's lips had quirked into the smallest of smiles, grasping onto that little bit of hope that Sharon had thrown her way. Before Sharon had the chance to think of something proper to say, something that would leave it less open-ended, Brenda leaned over and placed a light kiss against Sharon's cheek. Sharon sat stunned, completely taken off guard by Brenda's action.

She watched Brenda leave the car without saying another word and make her way on unsteady feet towards the building until she disappeared from sight. Slowly she brought her hand up to her cheek and softly brushed her fingers over the place that Brenda had kissed. She felt like crying, screaming, slamming her fists against the steering wheel until her hands hurt. This was dangerous, reckless, terrifying and just a little exhilarating.


End file.
